


Digging Deeper

by LilyEllison



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Gen, POV Foggy Nelson, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyEllison/pseuds/LilyEllison
Summary: Foggy still thought this must be some kind of mistake. Karen had hit her head or developed a case of face blindness or something. There was no way that he was going to walk through the door and see—Elektra Natchios. Standing in the middle of the room. Regarding him with the same mild distaste she always regarded him with. She was dressed in utilitarian black clothing instead of the designer stuff he remembered her wearing, butholy shit.She was definitely supposed to be dead. She was supposed to be deadtwice. Foggy didn't know how much more dead you could get than dead once, but if there was a degree of dead that was deader than dead, Elektra was supposed to bethat.--Elektra’s back. And things only get weirder from there. Written for the Daredevil/Defenders 2020 New Year’s Day Exchange.
Relationships: Elektra Natchios & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Elektra Natchios & Karen Page, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson & Karen Page, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson/Marci Stahl (background), Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 24
Kudos: 40
Collections: DDE’s 2020 New Year’s Day Exchange





	Digging Deeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ceterisparibus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceterisparibus/gifts).



“Foggy.”

A woman’s voice.

“Foggy.”

Like it was coming to him underwater.

“Foggy Bear.”

He groaned and turned over, trying to escape it. Sleep was good. Noise was bad.

“Foggy Bear, your phone has been going off for _five minutes_.”

Oh, that was Marci. Marci was poking him. Ow.

“If you don’t make it stop _now_ , I will tear the stuffing out of you.”

Jeez. Marci was definitely not a morning person. But then, well, neither was he.

Not that it was really morning. Way too dark still for that.

Foggy groped for his phone on the nightstand, looking at it with bleary eyes. The display was glowing with a photo of a smiling blonde. _Karen_.

And he was instantly awake and alert. He answered the call, sitting up and putting his legs over the side of the bed.

“Oh god, is it Matt? What happened?”

Karen started saying stuff, he was sure she was saying words, but they took a long time to coalesce into anything sensible in his brain.

_Yes_ , it was Matt. _No_ , he wasn’t dead.

The relief that flooded through Foggy made the words stop making sense again. He kept listening for “hospital” or “blood” or “permanent vegetative state,” but Karen wasn’t saying any of that.

She wanted him to...come to the office?

“Yeah, yeah, I can come down right away,” he said, starting to stumble his way to the bathroom.

He thought maybe he’d be able to pull himself together now. But then Karen said one more thing. Something that couldn’t possibly be true.

“You’re with _who_?!”

His phone clunked to the floor.

* * *

Dawn was peeking around the buildings in Hell's Kitchen as Foggy opened the door to his family's butcher shop. He started slowly up the steps to the — hopefully very temporary — offices of Nelson, Murdock & Page. It wasn't much: two adjoining rooms with some card tables and folding chairs, and office equipment that seemed even more ancient than what they'd been using the first time around.

Foggy was dressed for a normal day at the office — he'd even put on his favorite pink shirt — but he felt like he was heading into some kind of bizzaro trap, where the bait was something he'd been hoping to _avoid_ for the rest of his life.

He still thought this must be some kind of mistake. Karen had hit her head or developed a case of face blindness or something. There was no way that he was going to walk through the door and see—

Elektra Natchios. Standing in the middle of the room. Regarding him with the same mild distaste she always regarded him with. She was dressed in utilitarian black clothing instead of the designer stuff he remembered her wearing, but _holy shit_.

She was definitely supposed to be dead. She was supposed to be dead _twice_. Foggy didn't know how much more dead you could get than dead once, but if there was a degree of dead that was deader than dead, Elektra was supposed to be _that_.

But there was no mistaking her.

"Franklin," she greeted him crisply.

“Elektra?” he returned limply, shaking his head in bewilderment. Somehow, she was _alive_ and just standing there like it was nothing. He wondered briefly if he had ever actually woken up. Maybe he was still in bed with Marci and what he really needed was to lay off the late-night Häagen-Dazs.

He pinched himself, hard. Any pain was worth the chance to make this Elektra problem just...go away.

But she didn’t go poof. Her eyebrows just moved closer together as she watched him. “It’s been a...long time,” she said, a touch awkwardly.

“Not long enough,” Foggy muttered under his breath, the old petty animosity flaring even though he was literally talking to a corpse. But he didn’t think Elektra heard him. She was focused on Karen, who was emerging from the other room with a piece of paper clutched in her hand.

“OK,” she said breathlessly. “I was able to cross-reference the old Red Lion real estate holdings with records of the Fisk assets that have been seized by the state, and there are definitely a few discrepancies."

"And you believe they're potential safehouses?" Elektra asked approvingly.

Karen nodded.

"Brilliant. I'll do a bit of poking around."

Elektra held out her hand for the list, and Karen gave it to her without even the smidgiest smidge of hesitation.

“While you do that, I’m going to do more research on the Albanians. Who’s currently in prison, who’s on the outside. And Foggy’s going to pick his jaw up off the floor and help me," Karen said dryly, without so much as a glance in his direction.

Elektra’s eyes did dart his way, though, amused little needles, and she smiled tightly. “Lovely,” she said, and she left the office in a swirl of loose black hair.

“Karen!” Foggy exploded, almost as soon as the door had closed behind their visitor. “What the hell are you thinking?!?!?!? The last time Elektra was around she was trying to kill Matt and his superfriends, not to mention destroy all of New York! And now you’re just giving her intel and sending her off to wreak havoc? And where the hell is Matt?!"

“Kidnapped,” Karen said calmly.

“What???”

“He fucking let himself get kidnapped,” she said, even more calmly.

* * *

The story didn’t get any less ludicrous once Karen started filling in the details.

Apparently, Elektra had survived the collapse of Midland Circle just like Matt did, and she had been secretly keeping tabs on him, because that’s just what you did when you were an undead ninja who felt guilty about almost getting your ex-boyfriend killed. And when your ex-boyfriend was Matt Murdock, keeping tabs on him meant that you’d inevitably have to reveal yourself to try to stop him from doing some stupid, self-sacrificing thing.

Like getting kidnapped. By the Albanian syndicate. Deliberately.

“They’re after Vanessa Fisk,” Karen explained. “They’re still upset about Fisk ratting them out to the feds. And if anything happens to Vanessa...well, you know why Matt would be concerned.”

They shared an uneasy glance. They both hated the devil’s bargain that Matt had struck with Fisk, but there wasn’t much they could do about it now.

“The Albanians wanted Matt off the streets before they moved forward with their plan,” Karen continued, “and he wants the inside scoop on what they’re planning.”

“And how does he know they won’t just kill him?” Foggy asked, a familiar sick feeling in his stomach.

“They don’t have any actual issue with Matt. They just want him out of the way until Vanessa is dead, so he doesn’t interfere. Elektra gave him until an hour after nightfall before we break him out ourselves.”

“So this is all coming from her?” The sick feeling intensified. “How do you even know that it’s true? Maybe this is all an elaborate ruse.”

Karen shook her head. “We knew the Albanians wanted revenge on Fisk.”

“Yeah, and lies work best when they’re plausible.”

“Matt trusts her.”

“We haven’t even _talked_ to Matt.”

“We don’t need to.”

“What?”

“Matt told her the secret, Foggy. She…She knows what’s in the sauce.”

And Foggy had to grab onto the nearest folding chair to keep himself upright.

* * *

It had been — what? probably the first week? after they hung out their shingle above the butcher shop and started working as Nelson, Murdock & Page. Theo was generously keeping them fed at lunchtime, since Matt and Karen were pretty much broke, and Foggy was devoting most of his ready cash to getting the business up and running.

They were all eating the famous Nelson’s sub — which Pops had painstakingly taught him to make back when Ma still had high hopes her boy would grow up to be a butcher — when Karen finally asked the question that everyone asked eventually.

“So what’s the secret?”

And Foggy blustered about closely guarded family recipes at the same time that Matt rattled off a list of every single thing stuffed into the crusty semolina roll. Including the exact makeup of the heretofore secret sauce.

Foggy buried his face in his hands. “Matt! I didn’t even tell the FBI the truth about the sauce!” He sighed. “How do you even know what’s in it? And why are you spilling the family secrets?”

“Sorry, Fog, but I know because I’ve tasted it,” Matt said simply. “And, anyway, Karen’s family.”

And that was the end of that.

* * *

But apparently, it wasn’t the end, because Matthew Michael Murdock had decided he could just add anyone to the Nelson family whenever he wanted to. Including untrustworthy undead ninjas!

Foggy continued to grumble throughout the morning, as he and Karen began researching the personnel of the Albanian gang. While he had to admit that Elektra probably didn’t have much _use_ for a secret condiment recipe — not being a deli owner herself and having no connections that he knew of to the meat industry — it still didn’t sit well.

Not to mention, if the method Matt had given Elektra for earning their trust was _his_ family’s secret, then why hadn’t Elektra come to him in the first place? Had Matt told Elektra to go to Karen instead of Foggy, or was she just too intimidated by him? He was a former candidate for district attorney, after all. Practically a lawman.

Long before he decided to become a lawyer, Foggy had enjoyed wearing a shiny sheriff's badge while playing with the other rascals running the streets in Hell’s Kitchen — at least until that time he’d forgotten about tying Theo to a fire escape and left him behind, and then Brett Mahoney had ratted him out to Ma. No wonder Brett was the one who had ended up an actual lawman. What a narc.

“Are you seeing this?” Karen asked, turning her laptop screen toward him.

“I’m confident that I am,” Foggy answered. “But why don’t you tell me what you think it is first?”

Karen gave him a quick dirty look, but she was clearly too excited by her discovery to resist telling him anyway. “The FBI raid obviously devastated the gang’s ranks. But if you compare those records with the arrest records from before the raid, it’s easy to see a pattern. They definitely had a progression for their members — who was in line to do the bigger and riskier jobs. So if they’re still sticking to that same kind of rotation, then it should be fairly easy to determine who would be taking on the hit on Vanessa Fisk.”

“If you say so,” Foggy said, not quite following.

There was no time for Karen to break it down further, though, because Elektra was opening the office door.

“Found her,” Elektra sang out.

“Already?” Karen said, impressed. It was barely noon.

“It wasn’t difficult. I obviously began with the location closest to Central Park.” Elektra shrugged. “I know where she is, the extent of her security detail, and at least three possible methods of penetrating the safehouse’s defenses.”

“Wow,” Karen said under her breath, and Foggy felt a little dazzled himself. But he fought back against it. Of course untrustworthy undead ninjas would be good at finding targets.

“I am starving now, though,” Elektra continued. “Any chance I could sample some of that secret sauce?”

She actually had the nerve to smile at Foggy as she said it.

“I’m sure Foggy would be happy to get us a few world-famous Nelson’s subs for lunch,” Karen said, patting his shoulder.

Foggy plastered on a fake smile that turned real as he realized it was an opportunity to escape, and he quickly retreated downstairs. As always, all it took was stepping into the butcher shop’s backroom to completely change his mood. He had worried at first that the annoyances of working in close quarters with his family might outweigh the benefits of the dirt-cheap real estate. And it wasn’t that he and Theo never bickered or butted heads. But coming down those stairs when he needed a pick-me-up after trial or a break from his friends’ inability to resist the crazy was actually pretty nice.

Spending a few minutes catching up with his brother, just like going home to Marci every night, was a reminder that it didn’t have to be just Nelson, Murdock & Page against the world. They had other people who cared, other people who could help them in their own ways.

It was kind of like — when Matt fell through the thin ice he skated on, as he invariably did, Foggy could be better at getting him out now. Because Marci had a grip on him, and Theo did too, and there was a whole human chain of Nelsons going all the way down to Florida that could keep Matt from pulling him under. Even if Karen jumped right into the freezing water and he had to pull her out, too.

Foggy tried to keep thinking charitable thoughts as he remembered that Karen had brought an unstable former-and-possibly-current murderer into his family’s business, unbeknownst to his poor, defenseless brother. Not that Foggy was planning to try to explain Elektra to Theo, either — there were limits on what the human brain could be expected to handle, and used-to-be-dead people definitely fell into the way-too-much category. So he simply helped his brother make their usual order for three, without mentioning that one of the sandwiches was for an enemy instead of his very best friend.

Well, maybe not an _enemy_ … but, yeah, kind of an enemy.

All too soon, his peaceful interlude was over, and Foggy was heading back upstairs, dread weighing down his feet. He put the subs on one of the card tables, and they all clustered around to eat.

He couldn’t help but watch Elektra closely as she took her first bite. Her eyes closed, a blissful look spreading across her face. And Foggy felt something in his shoulders relax. Maybe she wasn’t all bad, if she could properly appreciate his family’s pride and joy.

But then Elektra’s eyes popped back open and she reached for a packet of hot sauce on the table, leftover from a celebratory taco run earlier in the week. She ripped it open and — _noooooo_ — applied it liberally to her sub.

“Oh, good idea,” Karen said. She grabbed another packet of hot sauce.

Foggy averted his eyes, unable to watch the crimes being committed in front of him. The hot sauce would ruin everything. It would completely throw off the delicate balance of the already perfectly spiced condiment blend.

“Yum,” Karen said after she took a bite. Foggy turned to her, so horrified he couldn’t speak. If he could commit murder with his eyes, Brett would be coming to haul him off to the pokey right about now.

But Karen didn’t seem to notice. And for that matter, neither did Elektra. They continued to eat their subs, chatting a little about Vanessa Fisk’s security guards and the layout of the safehouse. It was all very breezy and casual and completely maddening. Foggy could barely enjoy his own hot-sauce-free sandwich.

It didn’t take long after she finished her lunch for Elektra to get restless. Within minutes, she was suggesting another mission — this one to scope out where Matt was being held by the Albanian gang.

“Won’t that be risky?” Foggy asked. “They might spot you. It’s broad daylight.”

“Don’t worry. I know a thing or two about concealment,” Elektra countered. “And we need to know what we’ll be getting into after dark.”

“She’s not wrong,” Karen said. And it was two against one. Again.

Foggy was starting to wonder if Karen actually liked Elektra, or if she just liked how Elektra poured the proverbial hot sauce on absolutely _everything_.

* * *

“I don’t like this. Any of it. I don’t like _her_.”

Foggy threw the remains of his mostly uneaten lunch in the trash — maybe a little too forcefully.

“I don’t think we stand much chance of getting Matt back without her,” Karen said philosophically. “Unless you’re willing to let Vanessa Fisk die first.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“I get that. I do,” Karen said, nodding. “But I think she’s sincere about wanting to help. She claims her memory didn’t fully return until after...the collapse.”

“How convenient.”

Karen ran her hand through her hair. “I just keep thinking…From what Matt told us, she was raised by the same guy who trained him, so she learned all that same bullshit about pushing people away."

"She _killed_ that guy,” Foggy said, throwing up his hands.

"She was messed with by a seriously psycho ninja cult. She needs help."

Foggy sighed. "I mean, OK, yes, I guess. But she's like Matt kryptonite. Every time she's around she wrecks everything and then disappears. Are we going to just let that happen a _fourth_ time?"

"Well, at least one of those times she was _actually_ dead, so not really her fault. But setting that aside, Foggy...how many times has Matt wrecked your life?"

Karen pinned him with those blue eyes of hers, and Foggy let out a noise of frustration. "OK, you have a point. But Matt is better — he's a lot better now."

"Because we gave him a chance." Karen raised her eyebrows at him pointedly. He'd argued pretty hard with Karen to give Matt another chance. Now the tables were turning.

Foggy faux-sobbed into his hands, then tilted his face up toward the ceiling with a defeated sigh.

"Karen, she called me 'Froggy' for an entire semester," he whined.

Karen just laughed — a laugh tinged with victory. He’d go along with this Elektra stuff, at least until they got Matt back.

“What I don’t understand is how you’re taking this so well,” Foggy said when she’d had her gloat. “The history you have...it’s not much, but it’s not good.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re doing way better than I did at first,” Karen admitted.

“Why? What do you mean?”

"You never interrogated her at gunpoint."

Foggy grinned. "So that’s how you became buds."

"I mean, I had a lot of questions, Foggy."

* * *

Busting Matt out was kind of a blur.

But Elektra took down ten guys like it was nothing and Karen watched her back with that trusty .380 of hers and Foggy drove the getaway car through the streets of the Kitchen like a man possessed.

Matt obviously hadn’t been kept in the best of conditions. He looked like shit and he smelled like...well, shit. Foggy felt a rush of sympathy for his buddy until he remembered that said buddy had actually _allowed_ himself to be kidnapped. And if he wasn’t loved beyond reason by two — well, three — of the baddest badasses in town, who the hell knows what could have happened?

Once Foggy was fairly confident they’d lost any tail, he screeched into a parking garage near Matt’s apartment. He killed the engine and turned around to look at his smelly friend in the backseat. Matt pulled off his mask, still breathing hard.

Foggy was winding up to start with a lecture, but Matt spoke first.

“I know where Vanessa Fisk is.”

“So do I,” Elektra said from the passenger seat, rattling off the address near the park.

Matt’s forehead crinkled. “I also know who’s planning to do the hit.”

“Most likely, Albert 'Big Al' Ado and 'Little' Jon Bogdani,” Karen said from beside him.

Matt let out a breathy, humorless laugh. “And I also know when.”

Suddenly, a date that Foggy had seen on a lot of the paperwork he’d looked at during the day popped into his head. “Well, tomorrow is the anniversary of the Mother Teresa raid, so it stands to reason…”

Matt’s jaw dropped open a little. “So I didn’t accomplish anything?”

“No, Matthew, you accomplished something,” Elektra said, her voice haughty. “Since you couldn’t get out on your own and make it look like a lucky break, the Albanians are guaranteed to smell a rat.”

Silence descended upon the car.

“What do we do now?” Foggy asked when he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I think the next move is yours, Franklin,” Elektra said. “You have a contact on the police force, yes?”

“Brett? Sure, I could call him.”

“Will the police care?” Karen asked.

“It’s in your interest to make them care, isn’t it?”

“Point taken,” Foggy said.

“Well, I’ve got plenty of evidence that Fisk has assets that haven’t been seized,” Karen said. “That could be useful.”

“Perhaps we can convince Mrs. Fisk that it would be in her best interest to leave the country for a while.” Elektra smiled at Karen conspiratorially in the rearview mirror.

“What should I do?” Matt asked, sounding a bit lost.

“A shower wouldn't be the worst idea, buddy,” Foggy said.

Elektra started giggling and Foggy looked over at her. Their eyes met. And it was the craziest thing in the world, but it just might be the beginning of a friendship — not a beautiful one, probably a reeeeally messed-up one. But a friendship nonetheless.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ceterisparibus’ prompt: “Can I have Karen and Elektra hanging out and being, like, super chill, and Matt and Foggy both being kinda intimidated by their unexpected bond?”


End file.
